Public Understanding of Politics

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 10 November 2020.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 1:34, 10 November 2020

Thank you for your answer to Delyth Jewell, First Minister, but, of course, the media is only part of the solution. Education plays a vital part, and, with the next Welsh general election seeing the franchise being extended to include 16-year-olds, it is essential that young people gain an objective, fair and balanced view on the important role that politics plays in all of our lives. The new curriculum states that one of its core purposes is to ensure that our young people are able to become ethically and informed citizens of Wales, but it has failed to include learning about politics as a compulsory part of this. Politics is more than just putting a cross in the box, but understanding what change that cross can effect. Will you pledge to look again at the call, supported by the Electoral Reform Society, to enshrine political education into the curriculum, to ensure that Wales is able to fully realise her aim of empowering our young people with the knowledge as they enter into adulthood?